REUTERS: U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday moved closer to developing a national electric vehicle supply chain policy, with senators voicing bipartisan support for legislation designed to parry China's dominance in metals production and battery manufacturing.
Even some existing U.S. mines are in China's orbit, with domestic production of so-called rare earth minerals reliant on Chinese processing and now caught up in the U.S.-China trade conflict."China has a huge head start," said Gavin Montgomery, a battery and mining analyst at the Wood Mackenzie consultancy."They've just been at this a lot longer than the rest of the world.
Finding out the mineral composition of a particular region requires sending staff into the field to take rock samples, a timely and expensive endeavor. Murkowski's legislation would require a nationwide reserve analysis for all minerals used to make EVs. Jon Evans, president of Lithium Americas, told the hearing that the federal government should offer loan guarantees for U.S. mining and processing projects.
eCobalt Solutions Inc aims to produce 1,500 tonnes per year of cobalt once its Idaho project opens, though that is enough of the metal to make only about 300,000 EVs.